Liberal Government to fix Labor’s home detention mess

The Marshall Liberal Government is working as quickly as possible to fix Labor’s inadequate sentencing legislation, in a number of areas including home detention.

The safety of South Australians, particularly children, and the welfare of victims are our highest priorities for sentencing reform.

The one-page Bill presented by Labor yesterday is a flimsy band-aid fix to a much larger problem with sentencing in SA. Mr Malinauskas and his colleagues have failed to even bother including other serious offences like terrorism and murder in their proposal.

In 2015 the then Liberal opposition proposed clear home detention guidelines to ensure serious sexual offenders were not allowed to be released into the community. Peter Malinauskas at that time opposed those important changes, stating this “perceived need to exclude offenders” should be left up to the courts.

To fix the deficiencies in Labor’s home detention legislation, the Marshall Liberal Government will return to Parliament with a well-prepared piece of legislation which deals with the far-reaching problems within theSentencing Act, in line with victims’ expectations expressed this morning.

Paedophiles and serious sexual offenders do not belong on our streets, as we have continually stated, and the Government will work with the entire Parliament to fix Labor’s home detention mess.